Bladecutter
"Pursuit of Shape"
Took a while for me to post this, I'm seeing RED!!
Some of You will remember me posting pix & talking about Howard 500's, & one bird in particular, # 14 of only 17 built, that's @ gila river airport in Chandler, Az. I have been in contact with owner for past 12 years. The airplane got stuck @ Chandler back in 90's when a deceptive negotiation of sale was found out & owner stopped negotiations(meanwhile perps were falsifying ownership paperwork with FAA) When owner backed away, the perps broke into A/C & tore the panel apart, stole all the instruments & radios & went behind panel & cut all the wire looms. One perp did time in ASP. Also the airport is on indian land & the indians have been in a battle with BLM for years now, feds are trying to take land back from indians. indians closed the airport long ago, not allowing any ingress or egress. Bureaucratic nightmare compounded by fact that Utah would not recognize until recently the false ownership was truly invalid. So a situation that has decayed over years, & a perfectly good airplane has suffered.
In the first pic, about 5 years ago, the airplane was being worked on, was ran a few times(pratt & wittney R-2800 double wasps w/ w/ 2 stage superchargers, matched @ 1200 hrs,1/2 life). The chief was supposed to be keeping bird in hangar as it had already been vandalized some...ha!
Well, sometime in last 3 mos, after having been covered in mexican gang graffitti, along with all other aircraft on field,(on left vertical words "it's lit" were spray painted)the airplane was set on fire by these worthless welfare collecting punk pos parasites.
The plane was worth roughly 300K as it sits in 1st. pic. Now it's worth engines, props( cut down Connie blades on Corsair spiders/hubs), outer wings, landing gear & brakes & a few other items, plus two pods of NOS spares. Maybe 50K. You can see the cabin roof to cockpit is caved in, so it means fire got close to main wing spar, no telling how badly affected by fatigue it is now. This is a pressurized hull, which is obviously shot. Note, it's often misinderstood that the 500 is a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura conversion....it is NOT, that's the Howard 350's, which are not pressurized, only one pressurized conversion was built, the 400, which determined that to safely pressurize, NEW fuselages had to be built. The 500 was a clean sheet airframe built on jigs purchased from Lockheed & modified to the new specs. Wings were built "wet" & also reshaped for efficiency @ higher altitudes,, the 500 was built to cruise
@41,000 feet in about a 6500 foot cabin. The cabin held sea level to 16,000 feet, 2000 ft cabin @ 22,000 feet. Any heavy jet airliner flying today provides an 8500 ft cabin @ 41,000 feet.
The 500 is warbird FAST & will out perform most contemporary cabin class pressurized turbo props.
To see the only two restored airworthy 500's, go to tpaero.com to see Tony Phillipi's immaculate N500HP & N500LN, plus His other fine aircraft.
So do I feel like burning mexican flags?
(3rd pic, inset, is of brief recent magazine article in Air Classics, the text declaring plane as PV-1 having served with RAF is inaccurate, maybe a handful of parts that were remanufactured w/heavy modification , but NOT the airframe!!!) Dee Howard did certify some 500's as PV-1's so they could legally be flown single pilot.
I have an acquaintance Who is a structural engineer Who is negotiating with Owner to purchase, demate & truck out before there is nothing left. There is an airframe, partially restored, for sale, He will try to build one from the two, but imo N130P will be the donor, airframe #14 is done.
And moonbeam wants Cali to PAY gangs to not vandalize & commit other criminal acts, wtf happened to logic?
Some of You will remember me posting pix & talking about Howard 500's, & one bird in particular, # 14 of only 17 built, that's @ gila river airport in Chandler, Az. I have been in contact with owner for past 12 years. The airplane got stuck @ Chandler back in 90's when a deceptive negotiation of sale was found out & owner stopped negotiations(meanwhile perps were falsifying ownership paperwork with FAA) When owner backed away, the perps broke into A/C & tore the panel apart, stole all the instruments & radios & went behind panel & cut all the wire looms. One perp did time in ASP. Also the airport is on indian land & the indians have been in a battle with BLM for years now, feds are trying to take land back from indians. indians closed the airport long ago, not allowing any ingress or egress. Bureaucratic nightmare compounded by fact that Utah would not recognize until recently the false ownership was truly invalid. So a situation that has decayed over years, & a perfectly good airplane has suffered.
In the first pic, about 5 years ago, the airplane was being worked on, was ran a few times(pratt & wittney R-2800 double wasps w/ w/ 2 stage superchargers, matched @ 1200 hrs,1/2 life). The chief was supposed to be keeping bird in hangar as it had already been vandalized some...ha!
Well, sometime in last 3 mos, after having been covered in mexican gang graffitti, along with all other aircraft on field,(on left vertical words "it's lit" were spray painted)the airplane was set on fire by these worthless welfare collecting punk pos parasites.
The plane was worth roughly 300K as it sits in 1st. pic. Now it's worth engines, props( cut down Connie blades on Corsair spiders/hubs), outer wings, landing gear & brakes & a few other items, plus two pods of NOS spares. Maybe 50K. You can see the cabin roof to cockpit is caved in, so it means fire got close to main wing spar, no telling how badly affected by fatigue it is now. This is a pressurized hull, which is obviously shot. Note, it's often misinderstood that the 500 is a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura conversion....it is NOT, that's the Howard 350's, which are not pressurized, only one pressurized conversion was built, the 400, which determined that to safely pressurize, NEW fuselages had to be built. The 500 was a clean sheet airframe built on jigs purchased from Lockheed & modified to the new specs. Wings were built "wet" & also reshaped for efficiency @ higher altitudes,, the 500 was built to cruise
@41,000 feet in about a 6500 foot cabin. The cabin held sea level to 16,000 feet, 2000 ft cabin @ 22,000 feet. Any heavy jet airliner flying today provides an 8500 ft cabin @ 41,000 feet.
The 500 is warbird FAST & will out perform most contemporary cabin class pressurized turbo props.
To see the only two restored airworthy 500's, go to tpaero.com to see Tony Phillipi's immaculate N500HP & N500LN, plus His other fine aircraft.
So do I feel like burning mexican flags?
(3rd pic, inset, is of brief recent magazine article in Air Classics, the text declaring plane as PV-1 having served with RAF is inaccurate, maybe a handful of parts that were remanufactured w/heavy modification , but NOT the airframe!!!) Dee Howard did certify some 500's as PV-1's so they could legally be flown single pilot.
I have an acquaintance Who is a structural engineer Who is negotiating with Owner to purchase, demate & truck out before there is nothing left. There is an airframe, partially restored, for sale, He will try to build one from the two, but imo N130P will be the donor, airframe #14 is done.
And moonbeam wants Cali to PAY gangs to not vandalize & commit other criminal acts, wtf happened to logic?
